Digital Commons Network^™

A Four Week Intervention Program At Albert Lea Medical Center: An Investigative Study Of Employee Lifestyle Practices, Theresa Thorland

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of a four-week intervention program on the development of healthy lifestyle practices among employees at Albert Lea Medical Center. Specifically, the study was designed to investigate changes in subjects' predicted health risk age after participation in a four-week worksite health promotion program at ALMC. The intervention program consisted of the following wellness components: physical, emotional, occupational, intellectual, spiritual, and social. The study was designed to answer the question of how the "July Challenge" would effect the risk age of each participant.

Health risk appraisals were sent to randomly selected individuals …

Leisure Participation And Life Satisfaction Among Middle-Aged And Elderly Urban Chinese People, Jin Ye

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Society has entered a new millennium where quality of life is receiving more attention than ever before. In China, with the rapidly developing economy, the need for improving the quality of life has also increased. Research has shown that leisure can contribute to quality of life issues. It is very important to understand the characteristics of leisure participation and life satisfaction among middle-aged and elderly Chinese people. This can help leisure professionals to develop suitable leisure programs and improve the life satisfaction of Chinese.

One hundred fifty subjects (69 males and 81 females) living in China participated in this study. …

The Effects Of Individual Factors On Punitive Attitudes Toward Juvenile Offenders, Jennifer Keely Mac Connell

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between individual factors and punitive attitudes toward juvenile offenders. The individual factors examined were attributional style, authoritarianism, anxiety, self-esteem, the Five-Factor model of personality, and gender. It was hypothesized that possessing a punitive attributional style, maintaining authoritarian beliefs, and being male would predict punitive attitudes toward adolescent offenders. I also examined the effects of age of the offender and severity of the crime on attributions and punishment decisions. College students (N = 185) at a Midwestern university completed questionnaire packets in partial fulfillment of their introductory psychology course requirements. …

A Study Of Important Content For Undergraduate Graphic Communications Programs, Tsung-Yu Hao

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study was an investigation of important content for undergraduate graphic communications programs in four-year colleges and universities. The findings of this study can help educational professionals as they design curriculum, equip laboratories, and recruit faculty.

Subject categories and content items were initially identified by a review of literature. These content items were then further refined and rated on level of importance by a panel of experts. Modified subject categories and content items were then sent to the panel a second time for rating. Through this process, 15 subject categories and 68 content items were identified.

A questionnaire was developed …

Coping Responses Among Aged Home Health Care Clients : A Qualitative Study, Bobbie Kay Grother

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

As people age, they are faced with roles and activities that challenge their intellectual or physical capabilities. People, however, are pragmatic by nature; they seek to use what "works" when faced with predicaments that test their mettle. The purpose of this research has been to understand how aged home health care clients try to maintain valued selves in the face of their declining functional abilities. Data were drawn from qualitative methodological techniques (e.g., participant observation, observational data, and unstructured interviews). In order to provide some structure to this data, a theoretical orientation grounded in symbolic interaction was used in lieu …

A Contrastive Cross-Cultural Study Of The Speech Act Of Correction In Egyptian Arabic And American English, Nadir Anis

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The present study is an empirical cross-cultural investigation of the speech act of correction in Egyptian Arabic and American English. The purpose of the study is to examine how and why Egyptians and U.S. Americans modify the illocutionary force of their corrections in terms of mitigation and aggravation in different speech situations. A Discourse Completion Task/Test (OCT) was used to elicit corrections from 30 Arabic-speaking Egyptians and 30 English-speaking U.S. Americans. All the respondents were either university students or university graduates between the ages of 18 and 35. The six situations used to elicit corrections represented different settings (e.g., classroom, …

The New Social Discipline : A Critical Analysis Of Federal Drug-Free Workplace Legislation And Employee Drug Testing, Matthew T. Lammers

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In this research I contend that the arguments for drug-free workplaces are framed within a narrative of science that lends authenticity to the recurring themes that drug testing promotes the health, safety, and productivity of the American workforce. The sense of authenticity effectively delimits the discourse of drug testing and presents the complexities of drug abuse in binary oppositions that contribute to normalizing the behavior of all individuals, not just those who abuse drugs. I suggest that the process of normalization reproduces the delimitation of discourse and provides justifications for introducing drug testing into areas of society beyond the walls …